


Wander the Last Bastion

by Rib



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-04
Updated: 2017-05-04
Packaged: 2018-10-28 02:11:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10821597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rib/pseuds/Rib
Summary: The second Omnic Crisis was a complete disaster after Overwatch tried and failed to reunite. The planet is now under machine control and the remaining humans have been pushed to the farthest reaches of the globe. Down there no one remembers heroes, especially with the world still burning.





	Wander the Last Bastion

 

Hana stretched languidly from inside the gutted Mech, feet just barely running the entire length of the cockpit, dark boots propped up against the safety bar in front. Music poured from the century old Walkman at her hip, and a dull pink elastic snapped from between her lips. It wouldn't be long before the bond holding her gum together broke and it ended up an amorphous disgusting jelly in her mouth. She continued blowing tough bubbles regardless, gum was not a luxury she could afford to waste. 

Her thoughts drifted briefly to the last time she ate, her stomach no longer filled with the pain of hunger, a feeling she had to grudgingly admit she missed - desperate to feel anything other than the swelter of the vicious Australian heat.

She recalled memories of long ago when a beautiful blonde doctor warned her to stop chewing the stuff. It was bound to cause ulcers, but she was neglectful to the point of self-destruction, not willing to go through with her own death, but not quite avoiding it.

Hana laughed and glanced briefly at the long scars that circled her wrist - multiple chaff burns from the many times spent in handcuffs. Then she looked at the deformed boney protrusions on the second knuckle of her thumbs grown gnarly from the frequent breaks getting out of said handcuffs. Maybe she was a little more dedicated to self-preservation than she cared to admit.

The Walkman stopped playing and she looked down at it in frustration. It would be a while before she could manage to syphon energy off someone, especially since the last sandstorm did a number on her solar panels. It probably also didn’t help that the ozone over this part of the continent was completely gone.

She ran a hot tongue over dry cracked lips that had started to crust over from trickles of blood, and raised a hand over her brow, feeling a subtle shift in the wind. "Speak of the devil." 

Hana hopped out of her dormant Mech and pulled at a large tarp that was wedged between the side of her seat and the left most control panel. It unfurled itself as the wind started to kick up nearly dragging her along the course sand beneath them. She managed to muscle it beneath the hooks on her Mechs feet, over the top and back around, squeezing just underneath and climbing inside with help from the safety bar.

The tarp itself was wrecked much like everything else she owned. Pieces of the fabric were torn and fluttering held together by scraps of Twine and a few noncritical electronic wires. Through the gaps in it she could just barely look over the horizon and see the storm approach. They were becoming more and more common.

All of the extra carbon produced by the Omnic Factories was rapidly ruining what was left of the atmosphere, it was only a matter of time before temperatures got too hot for them to live above ground.

Hana reached down and pulled up a pair of goggles that were hanging from her neck, then she secured a moth bitten scarf around the parts of her that the sand could burn. There was nothing much to do when a storm rolled through, so she let her body squirm against the peeling leather seat of her cockpit trying to find a spring that hadn't broken under the vigorous wear.

Her eyes drifted closed, but stopped mid-way and sprung back open. A roaring sound echoed across the desert, loud enough or close enough to compete with the whipping sands. She couldn’t see a damn thing, the visibility too poor to make out just what it was, but it was massive- it had to be. No one would be crazy enough to brave a storm like this let alone drive through it.

Hana sucked on her bottom lip, before flipping the console before her on and using her last remaining power to bounce a radar off the landscape. It blipped to life showing an object about forty feet in length just elevated off the ground enough to send her heart thumping wildly in her chest. Was it a plane? Was someone actually flying a plane through a sandstorm that close to the ground? No way, not even she could pull something like that off.

She smacked a fist against the screen, hoping to knock something back into place and reassure her this was not really happening. The screen blinked but remained true to its original reading, someone was flying with the storm, just fast enough to use it as cover from Omnic satellites. Hana’s lips fell open in shock, frowning when bits of sand that had wedged into her scarf dusted against the roof of her mouth.

Skilled hands gripped at the loose joysticks of her control panel, and with a couple flips the engine roared to life. There was no time to unstrap the tarp, if she wanted to trail that ship she had to move fast. Not that it mattered, she wouldn’t see the landscape through the sand anyway. She pushed forward on the sticks, praying that there was enough power left to start the initial trajectory, face lighting up as the familiar sound of grinding gears started turning all around her.

The Mech coughed and shuttered, letting out a hideous ring of black smoke from its dual exhaust, and tipped ever so slightly forward before completely shutting down. “No! No, no, no, no!” She dropped her head down onto the front panel, smacking repeatedly against it in anger, but the suit still had one final insult and it wavered, possibly encouraged by the wind and slowly began to fall forward.

Hana screamed and pulled back on the joysticks in vain as the entire machine smashed headfirst into the dune beneath them. A string of Korean profanities rang out from under the tarp as she vigorously shook the sticks and beat her hand on the front panel, tearing off her headphones and laying forward against the straps of her seat belts. 

She let out a defeated sigh and fought back the stinging of her eyes. “Damn sand,” she whispered to no one as the inside of her goggles got sticky with the salt from fresh tears. “No wonder the Omnics avoid this place like the plague.” Hana squeezed her eyelids shut, hoping maybe she’d just lose consciousness and the sand would bury her eternally.

Then the telltale sound of the storm losing its strength smacked against her tarp and she screamed again. “You can’t even let me have this one thing!” _That’s the final straw._ She gripped the ejector handle between both hands and pulled as hard as she could. The back of her Mech made a hissing sound as the door tried its best to pop open, not having the strength to budge more than a few inches – a combination of the tarp holding it down and the corroded hinges neglected of proper lubrication.

“Well, I did always think this would be my coffin. Although I never imagined it’d be in this hellscape of misery, defeated not by war but by sand.”

She lay in silence for what felt like an hour, droplets of sweat trailing down her hairline and tracing the contours of her neck. The sun was back in full force and the sweltering waves beat against the tarp and sucked the air from underneath it. Hana groaned, shifting uncomfortably against some objects that had been lodged under her in the fall. Her chest felt tight with the sparse oxygen she could gasp into them.

A sharp tingling sensation like that of sandpaper under her skin alerted her to the lack of control she would get from her legs upon standing and she reached a hand for the clasp of her seatbelt, pulling at it with a metallic click. She fell forward into the sand and against the steel bars from her Mech, moaning uncomfortably as she massaged the sleep from her calves in the small space. 

There was just enough room to dig herself out from under the fallen machine and she squinted up at the dunes around her through the partially tinted goggles still painfully tight against her face. The nearest Outpost would be miles away and she wouldn't be able to carry much with her without risking what little energy she had. Sand would also be an obstacle with its seemingly sentient wish to pull her down with every step. 

She let out a long-drawn breath and wrapped her impossibly long scarf looser around her shoulders to cover more skin as she dove back under the Mech and pulled out a survival bag and a half full gallon of water. Hana unscrewed the cap and gargled a mouthful before spitting out the uncomfortable mixture of grainy mud that she had managed to accumulate. 

The sun was still a few hours from setting, and she grimaced at the thought of dealing with the cold whipping wind and walked faster. 

 

\--

 

For a long time, Hana thought Addison was a rumor. Years prior she’d heard talk of a bustling human city nestled in the gaping maw of the entrance to hell. Founded in a deep earth rumble that split the ground in two, and was continuously shaken by the heavy smell of gunpowder and fire – a city that held its own time.

It was impossible to see from the surface, and even harder to see standing on the precipice of a fall that would take you twelve whole seconds to reach the bottom of. Rumors said it was carved by the desperate and the angry, who had little but spoons to their name. Hana knew better though. She’d once been knocked clean off her feet by the shock of an explosion just down the street there. The city expanded outwards, and downwards by dynamite that echoed so loud off the canyon walls your ears were in a constant state of ringing.

Long bridges carved beautifully from wood stretched the width of the gap, linking up popular parts of town. They were wide enough in some areas to allow carts to pass, and the view across the canyon from the railing was absolutely incredible.

From the shallow entrance, it was an oasis. Unfortunately, the further you got from where the sun touched, the more decrepit and hastily thrown together it got. At the bottom reaches of the chasm few people walked about. Where windows would be covered in bars, long stretches of wall were only marked by a tilted wooden door with gaps in the corners from how uneven the hang was. Metal was too precious to waste decorating windows, so they were bypassed all together.

The heat was even worse too. The smithing “factories” were alight at all hours of the day, pumping out a stagnant temperature that refused to do anything but sit trapped between the crowded bodies of the homeless that roamed the streets.

Hana hated it here. The world came to an end and somehow someone managed to make a better life for themselves while the rest of humanity, the literal last humans on earth probably, sat in their own squalor. The upper class were worse in her opinions, than the Omnics who drove them here. The Omnics did not share humanity with them, did not care what became of the humans who fled so long as they kept to themselves in parts of the world Omnics dare not venture.

What excuse did these people have to push their own kind to the pits of the Earth and sleep soundlessly while their future rotted away beneath ground. Hana wordlessly traveled deeper into that maw, avoiding eye contact with all she passed until eventually there was no one around to avoid. The streets that far down were absent from any consciousness but her own and she sighed as she moved off in the direction of a shop where they knew her name.

Lindholm’s place was cozy in an industrial kind of way. It was hot like everywhere else down here, but at least it had proper ventilation, evident of an engineer’s sensibilities. The familiar sound of pipes rattling against the wall as the door opened drew a tall dark woman from behind the back, and she approached the counter wiping her hands off on a rag that was more black than white.

“Song.”

Hana nodded politely. “Amari.”

“What assortment of oddities have you torn out of your Mech to trade in today?”

She scratched at the underside of her jaw and looked off to the corner of the room. “I don’t think anything left in it is worth the effort to carry here.”

Fareeha laughed and threw her rag over her shoulder, holding it in her fist like an athlete. “Is it outside, or did it finally break down?”

Hana scowled and stuck her tongue out. “Bite me, Amari.”

The older woman winked. “You know Lindholm’s been after you to work here for years. You could have a steady income, and a place to live that _isn’t_ falling apart.”

“Who says this place isn’t falling apart?” A nearby pipe rattled and exploded in steam at her question.

Fareeha rolled her eyes and picked up a nearby wrench, tightening the loose nut and returning to the counter. “You know what I mean.”

“And you know I can’t stand it here. No offense but Addison isn’t exactly the picture of paradise.”

“It’s better than wandering the desert, scavenging for wrecks, and going hungry for days on end.” She looked at Hana’s slightly protruding stomach. “When was the last time you ate?”

“Do I look like someone who keeps track of what day it is?”

Fareeha sighed and scratched at her forehead with her thumbnail.

“Anyway, I didn’t come here to be mothered. I wanted to ask if anyone mentioned anything about a ship flying nearby?” Her companion’s eyes widened.

“A ship? An Omnic ship?”

Hana shook her head. “I don’t think so, at least it didn’t act like an Omnic ship. Flew low to the ground under cover of a sand storm - avoiding satellites and air radar.”

Fareeha’s brows creased. “Strange.” She rubbed her chin in thought. “I didn’t think humans had ships anymore, or at least if they do no one around here has one. Are you sure it was a plane?”

She twitched her nose in thought. “No, but it wasn’t like anything I’d ever seen. Loud, and faster than a sand rail, it also hovered off the ground.”

The older woman shrugged and headed into the back of the shop. “The desert’s getting to you, Song. You’re seeing mirages.”

“It was real!”

Fareeha poked out of the doorway in back and tossed her a small loaf of bread. “Tell you what, I’ll let you know if anyone comes around here bragging about a magical buggy.”

Hana caught it with ease and bit into the hard, dark point at the end. “Say hi to Torb for me.”

The metal pipes rattled again as she exited the shop, taking huge bites out of the overcooked food. It tasted no better than the sand she had earlier, but at least it was sustenance. Her stomach growled in anger, finally awakening with the sensation of mastication.

A few blocks later the air around her vibrated as if someone had run past her, then she smelled it. A sweet odor materializing before her, evidence of a body well maintained. Hana froze and looked down; her bread was gone.   

“Get back here you thieving freak!”

A sweet laughter echoed off the walls around her as she sprinted down some narrow alleys and descended further into the darkness. They were headed deeper into the bowels of the city, places where even Hana was too afraid to step foot in. She slowed to a jog and finally stood staring out across an empty street, refusing to go any further.

“What’s the matter, little rabbit? Tired of our game already?” A heavily accented voice drifted over and around the lobe of Hana’s ear, tickling the soft hairs on her face as she shivered.

There was still no one around, but she stood firm as she whispered. “No one has business in Junker territory except thieves and murderers.” She turned to leave. “If you wanted my food so badly you could have just asked, I would have shared.”

The static sound of a forcefield dropping got her attention as she turned and was greeted with the sight of a very out of place woman standing before her, bread in hand. “No one shares without something in return.”

“Maybe because you spend too much time with Junkers.”

“Maybe.” She smiled and held out her free hand. “Sombra.”

Hana stared at it and cocked an eyebrow. “What’s with the getup?”

Sombra laughed dropping her hand. “Not every day you see someone who’s wearing something other than rags, right?"

“Are you making a personal statement with all that purple?”

“Purple is a sign of wealth, Chica. They must have taught you something in school before the second crisis.”

Her eyes glazed over and she turned back around, heading to safer quarters.

“Hey, hey, hey.” Sombra jogged to catch up and animatedly waved her hands around while talking. “Look, I know - soft spot, trust me everyone’s got it. Sorry, really, can we start over? I feel like we got off on the wrong foot.”

Hana rolled her eyes. “Not that I don’t _love_ your company, but what do you want from me?”

Sombra took a bite out of Hana’s forgotten bread and gagged. “What the fuck is this garbage?” She threw it to the side where it was immediately swarmed with rats. “I wanted to talk to you, girl to girl, fighter to fighter, pilot to pilot.” She winked.

Hana’s eyes lit up. “You’re the sandstorm pilot?”

“The very one.”

“Wait how do you know _I’m_ a pilot?”

“Are you kidding? You may have cut the hair and ditched the whiskers, but anyone would be stupid not to recognize D.Va.”

Hana flinched. “I’m not that person anymore.”

“Yikes, you’re carrying more baggage than I did coming to this crappy city, and a girl’s gotta have the necessities.”

The shorter woman gave her a look of disbelief and walked ahead, getting halfway down an alley before a hand gripped her shoulder and turned her around.

“I’m trying really hard here okay? A little attention would be great.”

“I don’t have anything.”

“You have a Mech,” Sombra smiled, “and a winning personality.”

Hana’s face scrunched up disgust.

“Okay so maybe just the Mech, but that’s all I want and in return you can have anything. Minus the ship of course, I need that.”

“My Mech isn’t worth anything either, it’s dead, buried in a pile of sand somewhere. I’ve stripped it of everything valuable and now it’s going to be just another lost memory.”

“Then I’ll help you fix it.”

Hana looked at the hand on her shoulder, and gave Sombra a look of suspicion.

“No one knows it better than you right? Who better to fix it?”

“Why do you want it so bad? The technology is severely outdated, if you had the resources to fix it why not just make a new one?”

“Call me nostalgic. Do we have a deal?”

She threw the hand off her shoulder and rolled her eyes. “I don’t make deals with strangers.”

“Smart girl.”

They walked a bit further until her curiosity got the better of her. “Can I really ask for anything in return for helping you fix it?”

“Like I said, anything.”

Hana creased her brows. “Do I have to decide now?”

Sombra shook her head. “Preferably sooner rather than later, so I can accommodate it before the repair is complete, but that’s really up to you. If you trust me enough to wait until afterwards…”

“I want a ship.”

Sombra smiled a bit too eagerly.

“It doesn’t have to be _your_ ship, just something small that runs on solar and has decent cloaking.”

“That’s a big request, and not exactly a good trade for me.”

“You said _anything_.”

Sombra laughed and tapped her nails against the inside of her palm on one hand. “For that I’ll need a little extra something. Ships aren’t cheap, neither are repairs. Maybe we can work something out along the way.” She held her hand out again. “Do we have a deal?”

Hana eyed it, with a fire in her gaze, then firmly gripped the offered hand. “Deal.”

“Excelente.”

   

**Author's Note:**

> Back at it again with that Som.Va. I've got big plans for this one, but no guarantees on an updating schedule considering how unstable my free time is. 
> 
> It's going to be a long slow burn, and shit is going to get intense in later chapters, I'll add tag warnings when stuff goes down. But overall I expect to run the gamut of sordid things including: racism, torture, dubious consent, gore?, murder, etc. We'll get there eventually. 
> 
> Also the age gap is still there. I'm not a fan of it, but that's what I've been given so I'm sticking to canon. If that makes you uncomfortable just know that I'm not going to mention it often if at all and I'll never make references to it through character interactions.


End file.
